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Mark Dennis
Real Name: Mark V. Dennis Nicknames: No known nicknames Location: Vietnam Date: July 15, 1966 Bio Occupation: US Navy Corpsman, Petty Officer Third Class Date of Birth: 1946 Height: 5' 9 1/2" to 6' Weight: Unrevealed Marital Status: Single Characteristics: Deeply religious, wanted to become a missionary after completing military service Case Details: HM3 Mark V. Dennis joined the US Navy during the Vietnam War and served as corpsman (called a "medic"in other branches of the military). Mark was deployed to Vietnam and assigned as corpsman and served as chaplain to a unit of US Marines. On July 15, 1966, during Operation Hastings on the DMZ (separating North and South Vietnam), the CH-46 "Chinook" helicopter that Mark and Marines from his unit were riding in took enemy ground fire while approaching the LZ (landing zone). The helicopter crashed in a ball of smoke and flames. Thirteen of the men aboard the CH-46 were killed, including Mark. Several weeks later, Mark Dennis's remains were returned by the US Navy to his family in Ohio. The returned remains were reportedly in such bad condition that Mark's family was advised that an open coffin service would be inappropriate. In 1966, the grieving Dennis family did not doubt that the remains they received and buried belonged to Mark. A few years later, Mark's older brother, Jerry Dennis, saw a photo of an "unidentified" American POW being held in North Vietnam published in the November 30, 1970 issue of Newsweek Magazine. The POW in the Newsweek photo appeared to Jerry and other Dennis family members to be the spitting image of Mark, providing circumstantial evidence to suggest that Mark was alive, being held as a POW in North Vietnam, and that the Dennis family may have received and buried misidentified remains in 1966. Unknown to the Dennis family at the time, and not mentioned in the televised December 12, 1990 “Unsolved Mysteries” episode, the "unidentified" POW in the photo that Newsweek published in 1970 had previously been identified as US Navy Lt. Paul E. Galanti by Life Magazine in its October 20, 1967 issue. Galanti had been shot down and was being held prisoner of war at the infamous Hanoi Hilton in North Vietnam. The Dennis family, ignorant of the true identity of the POW in the Newsweek photo, unaware that Life Magazine had previously identified the POW as Galanti, and naturally wanting to believe that their loved will return home, concluded that Mark V. Dennis might still be alive somewhere in Vietnam. Jerry Dennis decided to personally investigate the circumstances surrounding his brother's reported death. Jerry learned that everyone killed in the helicopter crash had been positively identified, except for Mark, whose identity was assumed by the US Navy through process of elimination. In 1971, a veteran who served in Vietnam with Mark informed the Dennis family that Mark was not on the helicopter when it crashed. The friend assumed that Mark became a POW in North Vietnam. Jerry Dennis then had the buried 1966 remains exhumed. Independent forensic analysis concluded that the 1966 remains belonged to someone of about 5'7" in height, while Mark was approximately 6'0" tall. Another independent forensic analysis concluded that the 1966 remains are Asian, suggesting that a dead NVA enemy solider was recovered from the battlefield and misidentified as Mark. Fragment scrapings from the 1966 remains were determined to be made of lead which is inconsistent with metal used in the construction of the CH-46 helicopter. These are just a few examples of numerous findings from independent forensic tests on the 1966 remains that support that the wrong body was returned to the Dennis family for burial. The US Navy also conducted forensic tests on the 1966 remains, consistently concluding that the body returned to the Dennis family is in fact Mark V. Dennis. In 1981, one of the CH-46 crash survivors stated that two of the people on board had jumped out before the helicopter crashed. The US Navy did not consider this account to be credible since remains of all 13 crash victims had been officially accounted for at the crash site. The Dennis family appealed to the Board of Correction of Naval Records to officially change HM3 Mark V. Dennis’s status from "killed in action" to "missing in action". The board ruled against changing Mark’s status. In December 1986, Jerry Dennis was at a bar when a man named John King overheard a conversation Jerry was having about POWs and about Mark. John King approached Jerry and said that he had known a man while held POW in a North Vietnam prison camp with the nickname "Preacher". Because Mark Dennis served as a chaplain to his Marine unit, Jerry believed "Preacher" may have been Mark's nickname in Vietnam. When Jerry Dennis showed John King a photograph of Mark, King said that he is positive that Mark V. Dennis is the man known as "Preacher" at the prison camp. Afterwards, Jerry Dennis lost touch with John King, but Jerry believed that the man he had met in a bar, who called himself John King, was being honest about having seen Mark alive in Vietnam as a prisoner or war. Suspects: None Extra Notes: This case first aired on the December 12, 1990 episode. Results: Unresolved, but officially case officially closed. John King was located after the “Unsolved Mysteries” broadcast and revealed to be a fraud. One forensic examination of the 1966 remains, involving historical x-rays of Mark V. Dennis’s spine, matched positive to spinal material from the remains. Over a period of several years, bones in the possession of the Dennis family have been tested multiple times by independent experts that concluded that the 1966 remains do not belong to Mark V. Dennis. The US Navy has continued to state that the 1966 remains belong to Mark V. Dennis. Jerry Dennis died in 2002 without ever learning what actually happened to his brother in Vietnam. April 2017 Update: After a 50-year agonizing and frustrating search for the truth, the Mark V. Dennis case was officially concluded in 2016 after the Dennis family requested a final forensic examination of the 1966 remains, this time using advanced DNA extraction technology. The 2016 results came back from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency with a positive DNA match to Mark V. Dennis. The Dennis family then decided to officially accept the 2016 report if only to bring some measure of closure to the case and to the long suffering of the family. The 1966 remains were then cremated and buried alongside the graves of Mark’s late mother and late father in Florida in April 2017 with full military honors. Notwithstanding the 2016 DNA test, the question of whether the US Navy returned the correct set of remains in 1966 will never be sufficiently answered to some, especially to the Dennis family. Misidentification of remains during the confusion of battle was not uncommon during the Vietnam War. Subsequent misidentification of remains while being processed by Stateside US military morgues was also not uncommon during that war. Whether the remains returned in 1966 and finally reburied in 2017 belong to Mark V. Dennis, or to a different American soldier, or even to an enemy solider, a solider known with absolute certainly only to God has finally been laid to rest. The Mark V. Dennis cases forces us to consider whether other American families buried misidentified remains from the Vietnam War. Links: * Colorado News Update * Buried truth: who was laid to rest at Hill Grove Cemetery? * POW Network * Vietnam Memorial Page * Mark Dennis on Find-a-grave ---- Category:Vietnam Category:1966 Category:Disappearances Category:Military-Related Cases Category:Unresolved